AUTUMN 18 Issue 2

Ceaseaval heads to Amsterdam

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The project team met for the mid-term meeting on 18th to 19th September 2018, at the University of Amsterdam hosted by Jeroen Doomernik. We kicked day one off with results from WP1 – Concepts and Methodologies - where Erica Consterdine and Mike Collyer from the University of Sussex discussed the key findings from the annotated bibliography and accompanying literature reviews. A number of gaps have been identified in the existing literature. In particular, WP1 found that the majority of existing literature on CEAS is based on desk research with limited empirical research, presenting a gap which the CEASEVAL project can and will fill.

Martin Wagner from ICMPD then presented preliminary thoughts and results from WP2 – ‘Regulatory Mechanisms of the CEAS – including how to define harmonisation and critical obstacles to harmonisation drawing on results from Working Paper on ‘Sharing responsibilities in the Common European Asylum System’. A consistent theme in the obstacles to harmonisation is that different

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national administrations lack a common and defined goal, without which harmonisation is difficult to achieve. Martin discussed how international networks support each other such as sharing examples to understand appropriate ways to handle complex cases and posed whether this in itself could be considered as harmonisation. Upcoming work from WP2 includes whether different government levels − including EU institutions and local levels of government − have a shared understanding of harmonisation.

We then moved to WP5 ‘Patterns of politicisation on refugees and policy responses’ where Blanca Garcés from CIODB presented progress in the work package and drew on key findings from WP1 working paper on ‘State-of-the-art report on public attitudes, political discourses and media coverage on the arrival of refugees’. The key theme identified has been politicisation of responsibility. In turn, Blanca outlined the fundamental research question to guide the work package: to what extent and how has responsibility vis-à-vis refugees in Europe become an issue of politicisation of responsibility in

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different European states. This generates questions of who is considered to be responsible, to whom should they be responsible and what does it mean to be responsible.

Ferruccio Pastore from FIERI presented emerging issues from WP3 – ‘Multilevel governance of reception’ – where empirical work started in summer 2018. Ferruccio told the team that the key objective will be to examine the drivers of divergence and convergence between national reception systems, and to provide recommendations on how variations in national governance affect secondary mobility, politicisation and solidarity amongst member states. Ferruccio summarised the emerging issues from fieldwork, including: heterogeneity of national situations in terms of complexity in institutional structures, and harmonisation (transposition of rules) without convergence (implementation practices). Ferruccio raised the critical question of whether we can talk about multi-level governance in CEAS considering such divergences in national systems, and if MLG exists how does this affect convergence?

European Commission funds two-year-research on the Evaluation of the Common European Asylum System under Pressure and Recommendations for Further Development (CEASEVAL) – Consortium from 13 countries in close collaboration

ceaseval.eu

EVENTS

University of Luxembourg, 24/10/18, Border studies: vers un réseau de recherche d’excellence - launch of Interreg project VA Grande Région "UniGR Center for Border Studies" Prof. Birte Nienaber (UL) presented at Erasmus+ project "Face it", coordinated by NGO "Together Luxembourg" on 09/10/18 at Geisserei Scout Centre – Luxembourg city

Prof. Birte Nienaber (UL) invited speaker at Erasmus+ project "Face it", coordinated by NGO "Together Luxembourg" on

ICMPD, Vienna Migration Conference, 18-19/10/18

Krasteva, A. Panel ‘Migration 2.0: between information, manipulation & mobilization’ at “Medias and migration” of UPF (Union de la Presse Francophone), Tsaghkadzor, Armenie, 9-12/10/18

CEASEVAL mid-term meeting, 18-19/9/18, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam

Consterdine, E., Hampshire, J. & Doomernik, J attended European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), 22-15/08/18, University of Hamburg

CEASEVAL project workshop; 5/07/18, CIODB, Barcelona

IMISCOE Annual Conference: Europe, migrations and the Mediterranean, Barcelona, 2-4/7/18

Panel 5 “CEASEVAL Insight & first results” & Panel 20 “CEASEVAL: The discursive component of European asylum”. Partner attendees: Caponio, T., Collyer, M., Doomernik, J., Garcés –Mascareñas, Glorius, B., Kraler, A., Nienaber, B., Oesch, L., Paraschivescu, C., Ponzo, I., Sanchez, E., Sik, E., Wagner, M., Wahlbeck, O.

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Lorenzo Vianelli from the University of Luxembourg then gave us an update on WP4 Borders and Mobility detailing the exciting schedule for upcoming fieldwork. We finished day one with valuable feedback from the advisory board where the need for a common definition of solidarity was highlighted.

On day two Martin Wagner from ICMPD presented early results from WP6 on Solidarity drawing on key findings from working paper ‘Solidarity – an integral and basic concept of the Common European Asylum System? ’. He discussed how solidarity and responsibility-sharing have very different meanings, and how solidarity is usually only discussed in the context of so-called “mass influxes”. Our host Jeroen Doomernik concluded our meeting with some reflection and ideas for WP7 on ‘Policy Reform Scenarios’, where CEASEVAL aims to achieve highly impactful work. A critical and consistent theme arising across all work packages is the notion of responsibility and responsibility sharing; a central concept which will inform our work going forward.

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CEASEVAL Spotlight: Damla Askel (Koc University)

We’re involved in WP4, WP5 and WP6 so there are two WPs with empirical research and one more on data collection. For WP4 where we’re looking at bordering practices and WP6 we’re focusing on responsibility sharing and solidarity and WP5 we’re focusing politicisation through parliamentary debates and archives

How’s the research going?

It’s going well but of course it has been difficult over the summer to find interviewees especially stakeholder officials. And already we’ve been asked to get permission by the DG for Migration Management - so if you want to do research on migration in the field in Turkey you need authorization from the state so we've been waiting for that. And we’ve had snap elections, which also delayed the process. But then it went smoothly and especially on the bordering issue it was smoother than we expected as the coastguard was very open to us doing interviews with us and they helped us a lot. It’s not what we expected. A key challenge has actually been reaching NGOs to interview, which I’d expected to be a lot easier.

What have been the key findings?

Yeah actually there are a lot of criticisms amongst Turkish policymakers vis a vis the EU and their approach to this issue in general. It was mentioned by the interviewees but also in the data analysis in wp5. There was a comparison to what turkey did - hosting 5 million asylum seekers - and the fact that the EU couldn’t decide on their relocation scheme, so there was a general criticism towards the EU. And of course criticism towards the Turkish government. One thing that struck me was the change in policy in Turkey in 2014 because until then we didn’t have a legally binding document on asylum, so in the context on harmonisation policy in Turkey we came up with this law detailing the principles that is considered as very liberal. And some of the people who have been active in the writing process of this document they argue we have produced this nice law in relation to harmonisation in CEAS. However, they found that the EU have shifted from their own fundamental norms and values so there is a feeling of betrayal to some extent.

And what are you up to next?

We’re going to be finishing with the interviews for wp4 and wp6. For wp4 we have interviews with asylum seekers and refugees and I’ve contacted people to facilitate the snowballing process. It’s usually not that difficult in Turkey to find people to interview in terms of asylum seekers. We have some other officials to talk to from wp6 as well. We’re excited for the next steps!

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PUBLICATIONS Wagner, M., Kraler, A. & Baumgartner, P. (2018) Solidarity – an integral and basic concept of the Common European Asylum System?

Baumgartner, P & Wagner, M. (2018) Sharing responsibilities in the Common European Asylum System: http://ceaseval.eu/publications/Sharing%20responsibilities%20in%20the%20Common%20European%20Asylum%20System%20-wp4.pdf

Glorius, B. (2018) Public opinion on immigration & refugees & patterns of politicization: http://ceaseval.eu/publications/Public%20opinion%20on%20immigration%20and%20refugees%20and%20patterns%20of%20politicisation.pdf

Schweitzer, R., Consterdine, E. & Collyer, M. (2018) A review & analysis of the recent literature on the Common European Asylum System: http://ceaseval.eu/publications/A%20review%20and%20analysis%20of%20the%20recent%20literature%20on%20the%20Common%20European%20Asylum%20System.pdf

Consterdine, E. (2018) State-of-the-art report on public attitudes, political discourses & media coverage on the arrival of refugees: http://ceaseval.eu/publications/State-of-the-art%20report%20on%20public%20attitudes,%20political%20discourses%20and%20media%20coverage%20on%20the%20arrival%20of%20refugees.pdf

Van Oort, H., Battjes, H. & Brouwer, E. (2018) Baseline study on access to protection, reception & distribution of asylum seekers: http://ceaseval.eu/publications/baseline%20study%20final.pdf

Krasteva, A., Siim, B. & Saarinen, A. (2018) Citizens’ Activism and Solidarity Movements: Contending with Populism. Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology

Krasteva, A. (2018) ‘The alchemy of integrayions: Russians in Bulgaria’ in Bouju, Aimie & Edel, Andreas (eds.) Similar but different: Inclusion and exclusion of immigrant communities sharing similar backgrounds with their host societies. Berlin: Max Plank Society for the advancement of science, 41-46

CEASEVAL Spotlight: Östen Wahlbeck (University of Helinski)

We’re mainly involved in wp3 and wp5 − so politicisation and the local governance context. We’re looking at two smaller municipalities and looking at the local level governance of the reception of asylum seekers in 2015.

What’s been the key finding?

Well the background is that the challenge of increasing numbers of asylum seekers meant that a lot of municipalities had new reception centres. So we’re looking at the local governance of that and it’s an interesting theme in Finland because reception is mainly state-led. So policies are decided at the government level and then they contract out with different organisations that run reception centres, mainly the Finnish Red Cross. As a result, whilst the municipalities are not that significant in terms of reception facilities, they are important to look at because to successfully run a reception facility you need support from the local community. And here’s where the importance of local politicians comes in. There’s a tension for some local politicians as they don’t necessarily feel like they’ve been consulted on whether a reception centre should open or not. As a result, there’s been a lot of debate about the affect opening reception centres has on the local community.

The other highly relevant issue here is integration. Integration is the task of the municipality. The issue here is that whilst individuals wait for a decision on their asylum claim there are no integration processes in place, they are left in reception. Then when a decision comes, the role of the municipality is paramount – so responsibility effectively shifts to municipalities once a decision has been made but there time is lost whilst asylum seekers are waiting for that decision. And that’s why it’s important for the municipality and the local community to get involved earlier because they can start the integration support earlier.

Has there been a difference in discourse and problems in CEAS system according to different actors?

Yes, the state actors because they have a different perspective they are really interested in getting the administration working smoothly and the control of arrivals including distribution across the country. At the local level they are more interested in positive integration and the cause of an unsuccessful integration, such as unemployment.

Have you come across any surprising findings?

Well let me put it this way the state administration has become more and more professional and the administration has developed a lot in recent years but when looking at specific issues , there is only a handful of people who are experts on specific issues. EU cooperation and expertise becomes more important for a small country like Finland who doesn’t have the possibility to rapidly find the various asylum experts and the information needed

Any methodological challenges?

Gaining access took perhaps longer than I expected. Even finding the right person – sometimes it is not obvious who the appropriate contact is and you might be contacting the wrong person. And if they don’t know you personally or the project it can be difficult to gain access.

Tell us about WP5 – what have been the key findings?

There is actually something that is quite clear when you look at how the debate has evolved – it hasn’t been debated as a crisis from the perspective of asylum seekers but a crisis from the perspective of the Finnish society – how should society deal with these issues? We have two different time periods effectively. In the later time period it is clear that the debate has shifted from crisis of reception to crisis of integration. Because the number of asylum seekers dropped quite dramatically after 2015, there was a peak and then it dropped, and it means that the issue has become more a question of integration and recognition rates.

ceaseval.eu

Far right meets “concerned citizens”: politicization of migration in

Germany and the case of Chemnitz by BIRGIT GLORIUS (TU Chemnitz)

Introduction

At least since the sudden shift of the refugee routes in 2015 and the concomitant massive arrival of asylum seekers in Germany, migration is by far the most debated issue in Germany. The politicization of migration reached out into all parts of society, leading to societal ruptures, increase of hate speech and aggressive discourses, and the appearance or growth of new political actors, notably on the far right-wing side. Right-wing parties and neo-nazi activists successfully connected the topic of migration and asylum with questions of legitimacy, cultural otherness, belonging and identity, and thus reached a large part of the German society who put the legal and practical support of asylum migration into question and stress the negative consequences of mass-immigration for German society.

The societal ruptures could be clearly observed during the so-called “Chemnitz incident”, referring to a violent and fatal battle among Germans and asylum seekers in the city of Chemnitz on the night of August 26th, which was followed by a series of demonstrations where the extreme right-wing united with ordinary “concerned” citizens in their protest against immigration.

In this first blog of a five part series, we will explore how right-wing populist groups used the “Chemnitz incident” to politicize migration and why they were successful in such politicization. In doing so, we incorporate explanatory approaches from communication studies and other social sciences and we will place the events in Chemnitz into the larger context of politicization of migration in Europe. We thus directly refer to the research of CEASEVAL on Patterns of politicization on refugees and policy responses, which will produce a series of upcoming country reports on the politicization in Finland, Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary, Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey.

What happened:

In the night of 26th August 2018, a verbal conflict developed among several persons in a public place in the city center of Chemnitz. The conflict escalated, leaving three men injured, of which one person, a 35-year old German with Cuban roots, died in hospital. Two young men, asylum seekers from Iraq and Syria, were arrested by the police as suspects of the crime.

What followed:

Already during the day after the crime, the federal branch of the right-wing party „Alternative für Deutschland / Alternative for Germany“ published a facebook-post, mobilizing people to join a spontaneous demonstration “against violence” in Chemnitz. Also the extreme right hooligan group “Kaotic Chemnitz” mobilized via social media to join a demonstration. In the late afternoon, 800 persons gathered at the place of the incident in Chemnitz’ city center, close to the Karl-Marx-Monument. Later, groups of hooligans pulled through the streets of Chemnitz, looking for foreigners and attacking them.

One day later, approximately 6,000 persons joined a demonstration of the right-wing-populist local initiative “Pro Chemnitz” at the Karl-Marx-Monument. Among them were ordinary citizens, but also violent Neo-Nazis and hooligans. 1,500 persons joined a counter-demonstration. The demonstration − escorted by approximately 600 policemen − quickly escalated, leaving 20 persons injured. The police report shows that several groups of violent hooligans chased foreigners and left-wing protesters. During the demonstrations, several persons signaled the Hitler salute. In the evening, a group of hooligans set upon the Jewish restaurant “Schalom”, shouting anti-Semitic slogans and attacking the restaurant owner.

On the weekend of September 1st, again demonstrations rallied through Chemnitz. The Anti-European and Anti-Islam-Movement PEGIDA (“Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes“ /”Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the Western World”), and the right-wing party “Alternative für Deutschland / Alternative for Germany” organized a “march of mourning”. In the public invitation, they explained the motivation as “the brutal killing of a Chemnitz inhabitant and father by two asylum seekers. We want to commemorate all victims who died due to the asylum politics of the German State administration.” Quite ironic is the fact that the victim did not fit into the ideal picture of right wing ideology, as he himself had a migration background and furthermore was known for not sympathizing with right-wing positions and parties. Notwithstanding this fact, he was instrumental for the right-wing demonstration, by switching the code from his ethnic background to the social position (father) and citizenry (Chemnitz inhabitant). The incidents caused a strong public echo, not only in Germany, but worldwide. Concerns were raised that Nazi ideology would gain ground again in Germany, destabilizing the post-war democratic development. Also, safety and security issues were raised from two sides: while one side claimed the number of crime incidents committed by asylum seekers and refugees and the threat of Islamic terrorism, the other side expressed their concern that right-wing terrorism could be on the rise.

Read the full blog here: http://ceaseval.eu/news Stay tuned for the next instalment of blogs from the Chemnitz team on the far right

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IMISCOE Conference and CEASEVAL Research Workshop in Barcelona, 2-5 July 2018

By Birgit Glorius (TUC) and Blanca Garcés-Mascareñas (CIDOB)

In the beginning of July, a considerable part of our consortium headed to Barcelona to attend the annual IMISCOE conference, followed by a CEASEVAL workshop, which was hosted by our partner CIDOB in their office rooms in the heart of the old town.

The annual conference of the #IMISCOE network focused on “Europe, migrations and the Mediterranean: human mobility and intercultural challenges”, and took place on the Ciutadella Campus of #Pompeu Fabra University. The conference consisted of more than 130 sessions. The CEASEVAL-consortium organized two paper session and one workshop in order to discuss ongoing research with the wider IMISCOE committee. Two of the sessions were hosted by the IMISCOE standing committee #RELOCAL (Refugees in European Localities: Reception, Perceptions and Policies), led by Birgit Glorius (#TUC) and Jeroen Doomernik (#UvA).

The first paper session “Evaluation of the Common European Asylum System under Pressure and Recommendations for Further Development (CEASEVAL): Insight and first results” was started by Albert Kraler (ICMPD), who presented first results from ongoing research on harmonisation in the area of asylum in the EU. He especially discussed the term “solidarity” and its meaning for specific policy fields and actors. As a first insight of the teams’ findings, he elaborated on the facets of solidarity, such as loyalty, trust, fairness and necessity, and discussed specific types of solidarity such as “flexible solidarity” or “conditional solidarity”. As a preliminary conclusion of the research mainly carried out in WP2 and 6, he argued that solidarity for most stakeholders was most feasible in terms of sharing resources rather than people. He also stressed the multi-level aspects of solidarity and the territorial nature of refugee regimes as conditional.

Those reflections were expanded by the second speaker, Tiziana Caponio from #FIERI, who presented conceptual thoughts and first results from the fieldwork for WP3. Focusing on the terms “harmonization” and “convergence”, she asked the question if harmonization in legal terms can be managed without convergence in the implementation of regulations and policies. She discussed two central hypotheses for the emergence of multi-level-governance arrangements (the institutional hypothesis and the agent-driven hypothesis) with respect to different venues of multi-level governments in terms of grade of centralization of politics and connectivity of governance levels.

Her thoughts were a perfect basis for the next speaker, Jeroen Doomernik from #University of Amsterdam, who focused on the local as a venue for a Common European Asylum System. Stressing the role of cities rather than nations as an agent of change, and giving insight into a Dutch best practice example of refugee reception (#Plan Einstein), he highlighted the effects of local action on the horizontal level (such as transnational urban networks), which could also impose new dynamics to other governance levels.

The last contribution by Birte Nienaber, Claudia Paraschivescu and Lucas Oesch from the #University of Luxembourg focused on conceptual thoughts and first outcomes of WP4 on borders and the mobility of migrants. Using fieldwork results from Luxembourg, the presenters gave insight into the materiality and functions of borders and bordering processes. They highlighted that – especially in the context of an open border regime in the Schengen region – borders can only made visible by mechanisms of control, and explained the filtering function of borders. Based on results from migrant interviews, they stated that the presence of borders did rather not influence their interviewees’ mobility, but that their mobility fuelled the creation of borders. This observation gave a general hint towards the role of structure and agency in the context of refugee migration towards and within Europe.

The second paper session was devoted to WP5 on the discursive component of the Common European Asylum System. As fieldwork was already far developed, the presentations gave insight into the diversity of politicization processes on migration in Europe. The panel was started by the leader of WP5, Blanca Garcés-Mascareñas from #CIDOB, who elaborated the theoretical concept of politicisation, following De Wilde et al.’s approach, who identified as main indicators for politicisation the growing salience of a topic, the divergence of opinions and the appearance of new actors. On this basis, CEASEVAL partners carry out research on politicisation processes by examining public attitudes, political debates and media discourses in the case study countries.

The second speaker, Birgit Glorius from Lead Partner #TUC presented results from a secondary analysis of cross-national survey data, notably the Eurobarometer, to identify different patterns of politicisation among EU countries and try to understand the main drivers as well as possible consequences. Notwithstanding the variances of public opinion and how these were framed in the respective countries, the research revealed that there was a common understanding among European citizens that the question of

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asylum and refugee migration should be preferably addressed on a supranational level. The data analysis showed that the increasing salience of migration in the media and public/policy discourse, which switched to a negative polemic in many countries, affected the public opinion, but that it didn’t distract the public attention from important domestic issues which need to be solved by the national governments. Birgit concluded that public and political discourses which concentrate on the migration issue for the sake of catching votes do not respond to the needs of the citizens and will further weaken the confidence of the European public in their political leaders.

The following presentation by Endre Sik from #Tarki presented an example of extreme politicization, elaborating on the mechanism of creating “moral panic” in Hungary via campaigns of the national government. His paper explored how the Hungarian government framed the migration discourse and how the Fidesz-KDNP party coalition instrumentalised the refugee crisis as a moral panic button (i.e. a state-organised (and financed), repeated, large scale and multiple channelled form of moral panic generating activity) to increase the popularity of the government after its popularity decline 2014. By using Hungary as a showcase for politicization processes, Endre showed the relevance of the sphere of communication for the governance of asylum.

The last paper of the session by Cecilia Estrada-Villaseñor and Juan Iglesias Martínez from #Universidad Pontificia Comillas presented first results from an ongoing research on the discursive representation of refugees in the written press in Spain. The aim of their research is to show how selectivity of media representation creates selective perceptions of reality among media consumers. In this way, the society that consumes information is not fully informed of what is happening; that is why the study draws a map that shows the representation and treatment of the refugee category contrasted with the editorial line of two newspapers of different vision.

The two well attended paper sessions presented the conceptual frames and first results of CEASEVAL and supported the dissemination of results among the wider scientific audience. While the presentations consisted of already well elaborated papers, the CEASEVAL members took the opportunity to use the format of a “workshop” to present very initial findings from their research within WP 4 on Borders and the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers in the European Union. Organized by the Luxemburgish Team, Partners from Turkey (Damla Bayraktar Aksel /#Koç University), Germany(Birgit Glorius /TUC), Spain( Elena Sanchez-Montijano/CIDOB) as well as the Luxembourgish hosts presented fascinating insight into their research, consisting of interviews with border agencies and migrants and participant observation at borders.

Finally, Ferruccio Pastore (#FIERI) chaired a semi-plenary with the title “Beyond the ‘refugee crisis’: real partnerships or just containment?” which wrapped up some of the overarching ideas of CEASEVAL and transported them on a higher scale of observation by focusing on the external dimension of EU migration and asylum policies. The speakers Catherine Woollard (#ECRE), Ibrahim Awad (Professor of Global Affairs and Director, Center for Migration and Refugee Studies at the American University in Cairo) and Anna Terron (President, Instrategies, Barcelona) presented their views, derived from their specific disciplinary, professional and geographical background. Ibrahim Awad pointed out the repercussions of EU Asylum and migration policies to the African countries and claimed that the policies from the north would undermined the development of liberal democracies in the south. He plead for a shifting of the debates and suggested that – instead of sticking to questions of legitimacy of migration and securitization debates – initiate a debate on access to education. Catherine Woollard and Anna Terron joined in and pointed to the political structuration of asylum and migration politics, which in most countries is in the hands of the ministries of the interior, which quite often focus on the pathological parts of migration and respond with the contention of mixed flows. This, as Catherine Woollard argued, would lead to the prevention of people in need for shelter from shelter. This very well visited semi-plenary brought the urgency of the migration and asylum question to the fore and again showed the possible impact of CEASEVALs research for the further development of new policy approaches that are so urgently needed.

Following the IMISCOE conference, on July 5th 2018, the partners of the CEASEVAL project organized a research workshop in Barcelona to discuss the development of their research and share some of their preliminary findings. Which countries have been more solidarity-oriented since the beginning of the so-called refugee crisis in 2015? What role have the mass media played in the politicisation of the arrival of refugees? Has the public opinion changed during the European debates on migration? How are different Member States interpreting and applying the CEAS? How is the reception accommodation governance in each country? Hosted by CIDOB, this meeting also served to identify the different problems each partner was having during the research process: while some exposed the lack of cooperation of their national authorities, especially regarding interviews with officials and border agents and participant observation at the borders, others shared some of the strategies they followed to get access to data. In this regard, the retreat served both as a space of reflexion and as an indispensable coordinating tool.

Stay with us to find out more about the results from our research!

ThisprojecthasreceivedfundingfromtheEuropeanUnion’sHorizon2020researchandinnovation

programmeundergrantagreementNo770037

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